FemShep
by Midnight Lion
Summary: A highly introspective look at Jane Shepard. Earthborn, Sole Survivor, and generally messed up. Starting with her days on Earth even before the Reds and covering at least through the very first few moments of ME3. Hits the 'T' rating pretty hard. Chapter 4: Shakedown.
1. Earthborn

**Earthborn**

The cops have left the alleys and gone back to whatever it is they do when they're not rounding kids up and taking them away to be used as slaves in the colonies by adults who pretend they just want someone to love. Still, she doesn't leave her hiding place. Not just yet. On days when she thinks that she might not make it to tomorrow, days like today, she has to tell herself the list before she can go back outside.

Plus, she can't stand on her ankle. She's not sure what happened, exactly. She thinks she twisted it trying to escape. It could be sprained, maybe, if she's unlucky. If it's broken, her number's finally up.

Deep breath. Quiet breath. No point in thinking about it, since she can't fix her ankle right now.

Time to tell herself the list.

What can she do? What does she have?

She is small. Eight years of severe malnutrition will do that, although she was probably going to be small no matter what. Most of the other kids are bigger than her, even the other littles. Small can be bad, if she's running away, or fighting a dog or an older kid for food. But small can be good too, when she needs to hide, or to escape from the cops and the nuns.

She is smart. Smart enough to realize that almost everyone around her is stupid. Smart enough not to tell them that. Smart enough to figure out that the not-pictures scrawled all over the city have meaning, and to learn that language. Smart enough not to sleep overnight in the shelters, no matter how cold or hungry she is. Smart enough to survive.

She is tough, tough, tough. People have tried to kill her before, and it hasn't stuck yet. And she hasn't starved either. If she dies, it will only be because she's given up and decided to die. She'll never do that. As bad as things are, they're not worth giving up on. Not today.

That is what she has all the time. How can that help her right now?

She has some food tucked away in her clothes. Almost half an apple, if you can believe that. She was saving it in case she ended up getting caught by one of the gangs. Something to buy her way out of a beating. If she can't walk by the time the sun goes down, she'll probably have to eat it though. If not tomorrow, the day after, for sure.

So, she can stay here for two days if she has to. It's unlikely that anyone will find her. Even if someone does, he'd have to be the size of a five-year-old to squeeze into this space. Even if she can't stand on her ankle, she can take a five-year-old. Only if she has to, though. She tries not to beat on littles. She doesn't like being beat on, why would she beat on someone else?

Should she try to wrap up her ankle now, or should she leave it alone? She remembers watching some nuns deal with a kid who'd fallen from a low rooftop into the street. She thinks she was six then? She'd been impressed that the kid hadn't died, and had made a note of the way he'd fallen: on his feet, legs half-bent. There'd been a cracking sound when he hit the pavement, he was screaming like an infant, and she could see something yellow sticking out of his shin, but he was alive, and his head wasn't bleeding. When your head was bleeding was when you were probably going to die.

Anyway, the nuns had made a big show of tying boards to the kid's legs. She doesn't have boards now, but she has the sharp piece of metal she uses to keep away dogs, bigger kids, and pedophiles. (She knows better than to try to stab the nuns. They're easy enough to get away from if they catch you, so long as you're not afraid of pain or spiders. And honestly, there are more important things to be afraid of.) She could unwrap the rags that make the metal safe for her hands, and use that to tie it to her ankle. But is it too soon?

There's not enough space to sit up, so she twists her body around enough that she can see her feet. She doesn't like not facing the entrance to her hiding spot, but this is important. Her ankle looks purple and bruised, but not swollen.

Good. She'll leave it alone for now.

The street below her is as quiet as it ever is. She turns her face back to the opening, letting the wind push sour air into her face. This place is secret. It is safe. Her ankle probably isn't broken. Chances are good she won't die today. She is small, she is smart, she is tough, tough, tough.

**…**

He's back again. Sister Mary Verena is almost certain that the scrawny urchin who sometimes shows up in her soup kitchen—or, less frequently, in the rooms set aside by the local police for Colonial Relocation of Homeless Children—is a boy, but she can't be sure. He never stays around long enough to use the bathroom, apparently, and these children are all so undernourished that it's impossible to even guess at their gender before puberty. Regardless, no matter how many times he's spotted or caught, he escapes back onto the street. It's incomprehensible to the nun. Each time she sees him, she wonders if he stays alive through pure luck. Surely, an intelligent child would realize that life in the colonies, with a family who wants him, is preferable to the streets.

He never gives a name either. Some of the more humorous volunteers for the Children's Relocation Society call him Houdini. Privately, Mary Verena thinks of him as Gentleman Jack Sheppard: slight, and silent, and slippery.

"Hello there, my child," she says to him, when she unlocks the door to the room they're keeping him in. "Will you be staying with us this time? I think you're finally ready to give relocation a chance."

He doesn't reply.

Over the years, the boy has always worn the same threadbare clothes. They started off far too big for him; now they're only slightly baggy. Dark pants, a maroon sweatshirt with a hood and large pockets. A very dirty knitted cap that he probably wears to look a little more intimidating, but really just draws attention to how thin his face is. Sometimes he has shoes, but not today. She wonders where he's hidden his knife. If she asks, he won't tell her. He'll just continue to stare at his hands, and when she leaves the room, he'll escape.

"You'd be happy in the colonies, you know. With a family. Don't you ever wish you weren't alone?" She knows a little about the primitive society that the street children have created for themselves. Like any primordial group, might makes right among them. Jack is too small to have fought his way into a gang; he will never be anything but alone in this life.

"In the colonies, your life would be easier. You wouldn't have to fight to survive, you know. You could go to school. You could do anything you wanted. Wouldn't you like to live somewhere where you didn't have to run from the police?"

He glances up at that question. On another child, a normal child, his smile would be sweet. But Gentleman Jack just looks arrogant, and a little offended. He doesn't smile, he sneers.

"I nay have to run from _them._"

Rough living has given most of these children an exaggerated sense of their own abilities, but really! "Am I to understand that you were generous enough to _allow_ the officers to catch you?" He's not the only one who can be scornful.

It's hard to tell whether Jack really has large, wide eyes, or if the smallness of his face just makes them seem bigger than they are. Their color is hard to determine. Probably brown, or green, or maybe very dark blue—she'll never be allowed close enough to know for certain. He narrows them in contempt. Rolling them would be too much trouble, apparently.

"Adults see what you wants to see. And while you watches that, you misses other things."

"What, pray tell, are we missing, Jack?"

That's a mistake. He zeroes in on the name, and loses interest in sharing any more with her. "Jack?" Her university psychology professors would be ashamed. This _was_ the first time she's ever gotten more out of him than a 'yes' or 'no,' but now she's let him slip away.

"It's as good a name as any," she parries.

"Jack?" he repeats.

Mary Verena sighs. "Jack Sheppard, known as 'Gentleman Jack' during his lifetime. He was a highwayman in England about… four hundred and fifty years ago."

Jack doesn't respond to the insinuation that he's a criminal. It's unnerving. A child should not have this sort of patience. He waits, unblinking for her to reveal more. Sister Mary Verena is a nun, and silence has been an important part of her life for years, but on the streets, silence sometimes means survival.

She doesn't bother keeping quiet. They both know that she will give in eventually, and there is no point in dragging things out. "Jack Sheppard was best known for his numerous escapes from prison. He was famous for it during his lifetime. It made him a hero, after a fashion."

The boy considers this information, and she can see him weighing something in his mind, watches him decide whether asking a question will earn him more than it will cost him. She waits. There are several things he might want to know about Jack Sheppard, but she wants to see what this Sheppard values.

"They bagged him." It isn't a question. He knows too much about how the world works for it to be.

"Yes," she says. "He was hanged."

"Nay matter how many times you escapes. The time you nay gets away is the only one that matters. Hero's nay worth anything."

"And yet, here we are, talking about him, almost five centuries after his death." Let him chew on that.

"Sheppard."

"S-h-e-p-p-a-r-d," she spells. Belatedly, she wonders if he even knows how to spell.

"What did he need the extra 'p' for?" The question is contemptuous, rhetorical. This child sees waste everywhere, even in how a man spells his name. He turns away from Mary Verena then, staring at his hands once more, and she knows that she won't get anything more out of him. In truth, this is more than she'd ever have hoped to get out of him.

"Well, I'll come by again to check on you at lights-out," she says. When she goes out, she checks twice to make sure the door is locked.

**.**

When she does her rounds that evening, Jack has vanished. No one even bothers acting surprised. Sister Mary Verena sighs a little to think of what the willful boy is rejecting out of hand. Still, she remembers what he said about people missing things, and so she tries to stay sharp.

When she says good night to the littlest children the Society's taken in this week, all of them crowded into one room to protect them from the bullies among the bigger children, she pauses to take a headcount. They don't usually count the youngest children since their numbers change so quickly; people prefer to adopt small children, and far too many are rescued too late to escape the fatal effects of deprivation. But for some reason, tonight she remembers what Gentleman Jack said, and she counts the children.

She can't be certain, but she thinks one is missing. A boy, around five. He was missing a tooth, which was why she remembers his face. Of course, it's possible that he's just died. Somehow though, she doubts it.

"Heroes are worth something after all, aren't they Jack?" she says quietly to herself.

**.**

She hates having to let the coppers get ahold of her, but none of the others are any good at finding ways out of the pens, and _someone_ had to rescue Bug. Even if he's as useless as a damn jelly-alien for getting caught. He's lucky the Reds don't abandon their own. He's lucky that she's a Red. He's lucky she doesn't bash his head in to teach the other littles in the Reds a lesson and leave him for the nuns to find. She tells him so as she drags him back to the base.

If she doesn't let go of his hand as they scurry through the streets, it's only because she knows that letting go of him would be as good as handing him over to the cops. No one's that heartless. No one _wants_ to get someone spaced. Everything might be hard and unfair here on Earth, but at least there aren't any aliens to attack you. At least you're not a slave.

That night, during her turn on watch, she thinks over what that nun said. "Sheppard," she muses. She likes the idea of a man no one could catch. Even if they did catch him in the end. Tomorrow, she'll go to the park, and lift a datapad from some witless tourist. Before she hands it over to the Reds though, she'll find out whether Sheppard is a name she could stick with. She's never had one last very long before.

Keeping herself alert for trouble, she frowns a little. She hadn't liked that fancy spelling. It's not her way to try and pretty things up, not unless she's trying to fool someone. If she decides to keep Sheppard, that second 'p' will have to go.

**…**

Numbers, numbers, numbers make sense. What doesn't make sense is the way what numbers do is always true, how she can use numbers to prove the way things work, but then the world moves in these irrational ways despite all that.

The Reds are starting to look to drugs and beyond. Hyper is in charge now, and he has big plans. Guns, he says, are the future. That doesn't make sense to her. Who would they give guns to? No one they would sell to has the credits for firepower. Everyone who does have credits is too dangerous, a threat to the Reds. Giving them guns would be suicide. Being in charge has made Hyper forget that the Reds are about survival.

She doesn't like how complicated things are getting. If she can't find the right way to convince Hyper to back off of his stupid plan, she'll leave. She doesn't need the Reds' protection anymore; she's a teenager. It's been a couple years since she started to bleed most months like a grown female, in any case. If you can make it to this age without dying, you're probably safe from all the ways a kid can die. Adult dangers are another matter, but it doesn't take a genius to see that adults think in ruts, which makes them easy to predict and escape. The trick is not to start thinking like them once you get big yourself.

There are tests to tell you if you're a genius. Someone told her that once. Briefly, she wonders where she could get one, considers the library, the extranet, and the university that's located on the pretty stretch of the river. It would be interesting to see if she could beat the test, but it wouldn't serve any useful purpose, so she lets go of the idea.

Tests. How smart can she be if she's wondering how to prove she's smart? She knows, and that's enough. This question of running guns is a real problem. _That's_ what she should be thinking about.

What she needs is a way to make credits that's better than guns. If the Reds get into guns, they'll end up in a war. People die in wars, and she's never been particularly interested in dying. She smiles. She's never been particularly good at dying, either. Caddy, the big girl who'd been number two in the Reds when she stepped up to join, had called her 'Roach' until Shepard had knocked her around some and proven that she didn't have to take _any_ shit she wasn't willing to take.

The streetlights flicker on, and she leaves the spot on the sidewalk where she's been sitting. It doesn't matter that the sun will be warming that bit of pavement for the next half-hour or so. When the lights come on, the drunks come out. No one wants to get caught by the drunks. They hit harder than other adults, and they mark their territory by pissing on it, like dogs. If you get in the way, they'll piss on you, too, and laugh about it.

What can the Reds sell besides guns? Hyper doesn't like the idea of drugs. Everyone wants to be in drugs, he says, and though she hates to admit it, he does make a good point.

She's sitting on a wall at the edge of the street now, not quite high enough to reach a rooftop if she needs to run quick, but the drop to the ground won't be bad. There's a scrabbling sound behind, her, and she twists, tenses, gets ready to run.

It's Turtle. She rolls her eyes and grabs the back of his shirt to help lift him up.

"Hiya, Shep!" Turtle is always happy, and loud, which she doesn't understand.

"Hiya. Where's Finch?" The two of them are inseparable. Finch keeps quiet, but Turtle tells everyone that they're brothers. It could be true. They joined the Reds together, and they look a little alike. Scrawny.

Turtle shrugs. Fine. If he doesn't want to tell, it doesn't matter.

"What you do?" he asks.

"Thinking."

"You always think."

"So?"

"So, I think, too. Why you nay step up when you have the chance? You lead better than Hyper, I think."

She blinks and stares at the boy beside her. Where has this come from? Dissent is dangerous. The Reds work together to stay alive. More than that, if Hyper thinks she's a threat to him, he'll kill her. That's what she would do.

"Nay want to lead."

"Nay want Hyper to lead, either."

"Who cares?"

He shrugs again. For a minute, she considers pushing him off the wall. He probably wouldn't hurt himself too bad. But she doesn't hold with beating on littles. Even big littles like Turtle.

"Just think things'd be different, we have you in charge."

"Why me?"

"You smart. We all know it."

"Smart enough to know Hyper's bigger than me. Smart enough to keep my mouth shut."

"Smart enough not to sell guns?"

"He found some?"

Turtle makes a face. "Worse. He found a way to make money to buy guns."

That is bad. Hyper's ideas are almost never good. Usually they involve someone getting really hurt. Stupid! She shouldn't have gone off on her own. Hyper needs watching, needs someone to talk him out of the thoughts he has. It's no harder to think when she's following Hyper than it is when she's on her own. She didn't need quiet that much.

"Anyone dead?"

"Nay." Turtle hesitates. "Maybe wish they dead."

She doesn't wait to hear more. She's on the ground, on her way back to the Reds' hideout.

**.**

"Hiya, Boss." Hyper likes it when she calls him boss, which is why she does it. If it keeps him from pounding on her, it's worth it.

"Shepard." That's not good. Usually Hyper calls her something else, like "Brains," or "Backup," because she lets him, and it reminds everyone that he's in charge, and that she works for him.

"Heard you gots guns?"

He grins. "Not yet, but soon. Look." He gestures her over, and pulls up one of the old floorboards. There's a flat plastic disk hidden there. A credit chit. She whistles.

"Where you get this, boss?"

Hyper makes a depreciating gesture, the picture of modesty. "Sometimes I get good ideas."

"I'll say." She hates that part of her wants to touch the chit. She's never had enough money to need one. What did Hyper think of to get that much?

It's stupid, but she hesitates before asking him. Hyper is not very smart. How galling that he could think up a plan to make money that is more successful than her plans. She shakes herself out of that mindset. Pride is worthless, but knowledge keeps you alive.

"You got the best idea. Share with me, boss!" Her voice whines a little, which stretches Hyper's grin a little. He likes the thought that she needs something from him.

"Use your brains, Shepard." He waves to the dark corners of the room. "I find something the Reds got too much of, and I sell it."

Something the Reds had too much of? What? They'd had a good run finding food lately, but not enough to…. She freezes, and stares at Hyper. If she's right, it's time to leave the Reds.

"Where're the littles?" she asks.

**…**

"You need to fill out the whole form," the recruiter says, shoving the datapad back at her.

She frowns. She did fill the whole form out.

He sighs as though she has done something unforgiveable. She fights the urge to bash his face in. This idiot doesn't realize that his job hinges on people like her signing up for the Alliance. If she didn't need…. She has to hide somewhere, and the army is the best place to do that. If she didn't need to hide, she would walk away in the hopes that her absence would cause some sort of disruption in his pay. Even though that's statistically improbable.

"Your name," the man says.

"Yeah?" Shepard is a name people have, isn't it? Other people?

"We need a first _and_ last name."

"Why?" There's nothing wrong with her name! What does 'first and last name' even mean? Who needs more than one name at a time? It's just something people call you.

"We just do." He taps his nametag with a thick finger, and she reads 'SC J. Watts.' Well, that's ridiculous. One of his names is just letters.

She shrugs, and remembers Gentleman Jack Sheppard. She types 'G.J.' into the datapad, only to have the thing returned to her again.

"What now?"

"Look, either give us your real name, or go somewhere else and quit wasting our time."

Idiot. There is no 'us.' There is no 'our.' The army is an animal beyond his control. He doesn't work with it, it's consumed him.

That thought makes her pause. She asks herself again; is this escape important enough to sacrifice her freedom? To become part of the animal? They will try to turn her into a tool they can use, and if she fights it, they will crush her. Can she fool them for a few years?

She looks back at the recruiter, sees the stripes on his arm, and remembers that they mean that he is an officer. Officers have to take orders, but they give them, too. If this fat man, who's too dumb to know the answers to her questions, can be an officer, she could be running her own ship in no time.

So, she has to give herself another name. What a waste. She glances back at the recruiter. He probably won't let her name herself 'Jack.' Even though she's not entirely clear on what the difference between boy and girl names is, she knows that Jack is a boy's name. Most of the names she knows are boy names; it's easier for boys to stay alive. And she won't name herself after a nun.

Out of nowhere, a memory comes to her. The blond whore who'd worked the block of Tenth Street between Beacon and Garrison. When Shepard had been young, during her first years on the streets, the whore had shared food a few times. Once, she'd let Shepard spend the night in the building where she was squatting, but in the morning, a gang had kicked them both out. She hadn't stopped the gang from beating Shepard up, but she'd taken a few blows that were meant for the kid. Now, Shepard realizes that the prostitute hadn't been more than a kid herself. Sixteen at the oldest, and a small sixteen if that.

"You're little, like me," she had said once. "Nay wish to be big; won't happen. But I keeps an eye out for you. Littles should look out for each other."

When Shepard had been younger, and stupider, she'd thought the whore was her mother. That she was kind because she felt bad for leaving her baby to the streets. It might even have been true. They'd been the only two blondes on the streets, after all. Of course, thinking that, Shepard hadn't known whether to love the older girl or hate her.

It doesn't matter. What matters is a name. Who cares where it comes from?

Shepard cares. It's a weakness, but she doesn't have to tell anyone. No one can make her use any name but Shepard, anyway. She types the streetwalker's name into the datapad, and hands it back to the man.

"Jane Shepard." He looks up. "Welcome to the Alliance."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Author's Note: <strong>So, this is a little different for me. Consider it a bonus for the release of ME3, since I may not finish Massive Epic in time._


	2. Sole Survivor

**Sole Survivor**

* * *

><p>The stripes on her shoulder mark her as a lieutenant, and set her apart. She's grateful that they give her an excuse to stay away from the others. In the military, being in charge means that it's unprofessional to be close to people in your unit. That's good. It lets everyone save face. The others can pretend that they avoid her because they don't want to be accused of breaking the regs, and she can pretend that her authority is the reason she stays away from them. No one points out that the other lieutenant and the commander are more than happy to fraternize.<p>

The rest of the unit doesn't like her. They think she's odd, because she studies them with the same intensity she studies training vids, and because she doesn't understand the point in going out to get drunk during leave. It's been years, but a part of her is still a secretive streetborn mongrel who doesn't know how to trust anyone.

Everyone, even the sentries have clustered around the fire that the rest of the unit has built. They're all together. No one is on duty. The only sentient life on Akuze, the human colony, has vanished, so there's nothing to watch for but angry wildlife. Barely worth the time of a marine troop, but one of the missing colonists was (is?) related to an undersecretary in Ambassador Udina's office, so here they are. But they've been here for thirty-eight hours, and no one has found anything. It's a waste of time, which is why the others are clustered around a bonfire, drinking and laughing together.

She doesn't even want to be by the fire. She's noticed recently that she's softer than she used to be. Weaker. Take right now, for instance. Even though she's lived most of her life not knowing exactly what 'warm' or 'safe' or 'full' mean, a few years in the Alliance military has eroded her toughness to a point where her body thinks it needs to be by the fire. She used to be tougher than this.

Shepard shakes out her bedroll and sits on it. She debates whether or not she should take off her armor. It is heavy, and uncomfortable to sleep in. It's also surprisingly good at keeping her warm, which means that it is not useful for making her tough again. However, it is very good at protecting her body from things: bullets, knives, biotic attacks. She leaves the armor on.

The sun set a few hours ago, taking all the warmth in the ground with it almost instantly. Good. She lies down on her stomach, resting on top of the roll instead of crawling inside it. Years ago, she realized that this is the best way to sleep. If someone attacks you when you're sleeping, being on your stomach is a moment away from being on your feet and running. When you're small, sometimes running is the best way to keep safe. Of course, these days she has a gun of her own, a long knife strapped to her boot, and she's working on a way to turn her omni-tool into a more effective weapon. Disabling enemy electronics is all well and good, but she'll figure out how to turn the machine into a stabbing implement. She's always been good with knives.

The rest of the unit is still awake. Foolish. Even those marines who won't have to stand watch tonight will feel the effects of their stupidity tomorrow when they have to march all day on too little sleep. Why would she ever want to be like them?

**.**

Something is wrong. She's on her feet without knowing why she's awake. No one has woken her for her turn on watch. Her body knows that there's danger coming. Her body wants to flee, but her mind knows that unless she makes sure of where the danger is, she could very well run right into it. She is also responsible for keeping the others in her unit alive.

What if the danger is in their camp? She doesn't pretend that she cares enough about her duty to risk her life unnecessarily. There are no noises coming from the camp, but the hair on the back of her neck won't lie flat.

Time is passing, seconds ticking by with an unnatural slowness. She knows that this is just adrenaline distorting things, but it still feels strange. It's not like her to be indecisive.

Before she makes the decision to move, to try and wake up the squad and convince them that she's not insane, she just senses that they're all about to die, the ground explodes. She's tossed at least three meters in the air, and when she lands her head cracks against the packed dirt. Immediately, she checks for blood. There is none, which is good. Something is wrong though, because as soon as she's sure she's all right, she's on her feet running towards the main camp. Which is not the way she does things. When she has the choice, she runs _away _from danger.

There's noise now. The others are awake. Someone, maybe more than one person, is shooting at the… the _thing_ that's risen out of the ground, but it's not making any difference. Most of the noise is screaming.

She's in a strange new place, half-memory, half-training. She's planning on attacking the thing, no matter that it's as tall as a building, which is training. She's relying on her knife, which is memory.

Another explosion in the ground. How is the big thing causing them?

A clump of dirt lands on her arm. It's steaming. It's not dirt. Acid? Some kind of acid? It's eating through her suit! She cuts the straps holding that plate on her arm and drops the armor on the ground. She's almost at the big thing. She wants everything to end. She's taken down threats that were bigger than her before, but she'd had the Reds behind her every time.

In her ears, she can hear someone yelling, telling the others to form up. It's her voice. No one's responding. She doesn't hear shots any more. She doesn't hear much screaming either.

She's at the big thing. She stabs it. Once, twice, again and again. It doesn't seem to notice. Something falls to the ground behind her. You don't forget the sound a body makes when it falls the wrong way from too high up. She doesn't look. She doesn't want to see who it is.

Her arm is tired from stabbing, but she doesn't stop. There's an odd quiet now, just the thuds of her knife, and a few moans that she won't listen to.

A different kind of scream. An angry, triumphant, dangerous animal scream. The thing disappears back into the ground, taking her knife with it. It nearly takes her arm, too. She feels the bone snap. Everything is silent, suddenly. She stares at the crater in the ground, wondering what just happened. She's alone in the dark, all of a sudden.

To think that just a few hours ago, she was telling herself that she wanted to be alone.

**…**

There's something wrong with this one. Dr. Clarke has been performing psychiatric evaluations for the Alliance military since before the First Contact War. He has helped rehabilitate veterans of Shanxi, written treatises on the effects that serving with biotics has on non-biotic soldiers, and his lectures on human military psychology have become standard reading for alien governments.

To be clear, Dr. Clarke understands soldiers. He understands how they think. How they should think. And it is clear that there is something wrong with the soldier in front of him.

Shepard won't answer his questions. Day after day, they sit through these sessions in almost total silence. On the first day, she confirmed the facts of what happened on Akuze, explained how she had decided not to waste time trying to fix any of her unit's rovers, had just taken a distress beacon from her dead CO, slung her duffel over her unbroken shoulder, and walked to high ground where she signaled for rescue. Since then, she's offered nothing new. From time to time, she deigns to answer Dr. Clarke's inquiries about how she likes the food in the hospital (it's hot), or her opinion on the chances of rain (likely, since it's spring here).

If he didn't know any better, Shepard's commitment to staring blankly at the wall—not even out the window, but at the wall—would make Clarke think that the woman was mentally handicapped.

The thin personnel file he's read so many times that he has it memorized says otherwise, however. Not that he places much stock in tests that have only undergone minimal revisions since the twentieth century, but results like Shepard's are atypical enough that she would have been tested more than once, to make sure no one had made a mistake. Dr. Clarke thinks it's a waste that someone so broken has such an extraordinarily high intellect. Although, he supposes that she would have needed to be intelligent to survive as an orphan in one of the worst slums on Earth.

At first, she presented an interesting challenge. Now she has become an annoyance. He has other patients, he is tired of wasting time on this one. Why the Alliance military brass thinks she might be a viable candidate for N7 training is beyond him. So, she's a survivor. Plenty of soldiers are. An N7 needs to be something more.

"You do know that I can't clear you for active duty if you don't talk to me."

"If I don't let you evaluate me," she corrects. The datalogs for the extranet terminal in Shepard's room show that she has been reading papers on psychology. Something else that Dr. Clarke finds irritating about her.

Still, this sentence is more than he's gotten out of her all week. He has to push on. "Surely you agree that the Alliance has a right to know that its soldiers are equipped to handle the emotional stresses of combat. It's a safety measure, for everyone from combatants to civilians."

She says nothing.

He tries again. "You are a valuable part of the Alliance, Lieutenant Shepard. The Alliance needs soldiers like you. If you just talk with me, we can start working on getting you back to working with the Alliance."

Again, no reaction.

One last attempt. "The longer it takes you to talk to me, the longer we have to keep you here."

Her nostrils flare slightly in contempt, and she finally turns to look at him. "My file must tell you that I grew up on Earth. I've never lived anywhere like this hospital. Plenty of food, beds, my own room, my own extranet terminal…. I enjoy it even though I know it's making me soft.

"Of course, it must not seem like much to you. Dr. Stephen K. Clarke. Born in Hong Kong to two loving, affluent parents, the last of three children. Graduated with honors from the University of Cambridge's medical school, and settled into a career working for the Alliance military before people even thought that we _needed_ an Alliance military. When the Alliance Psychiatric Association named you member of the year four years ago, they called you a visionary for your work on comparative xenopsychology, and a humanitarian for your work on PTSD."

"There's a lot of information about me on the extranet," Clarke says noncommittally. Tonight he's going to chew out the hospital's techs. How could they have missed that Shepard was researching _him_? Best and brightest humanity has to offer, his ass.

"There is." Shepard agrees. "And most of it is fairly interesting. Of course, the articles published on you or by you are nothing compared to what else I was able to dig up. Two domestic assault charges from different women on different _planets_, and they both go away before the final paperwork even gets filed? Not to mention the number of female subordinates who've requested sudden transfers or abandoned their careers just weeks after receiving a promotion to work directly with you." Her eyes are cold, hard, but her voice is as neutral as ever; she's just commenting on the food.

"Then of course, there are the allegations that you didn't gain your insight in alien psychology by studying at alien hospitals, but that you were part of a black-ops Alliance group that actually—"

Clarke stands up before he realizes what he's doing. How can she know that? No one knows that! They promised that no one would ever find out!

Shepard's smile is sweet. "Don't worry, Dr. Clarke. I'm as racist as the next Earthborn human; I don't particularly care what you did. But please, don't pretend that you actually give a shit." She leans back in her chair, neatly folding her hands in her lap. "I really do like it here. Still, I suppose you have a point. It's time for me to move on. You should probably tell the brass that I'm ready to head out for N7 training."

**.**

It's another two days before someone calls to inquire about Shepard. The questions from the brass had been more frequent at first, trying to make sense of whether their sole survivor was going to pull through all this mentally intact. When Clarke made it clear that he was going to need time, the inquiries had become less frequent.

"So?" The Fleet Admiral on the other end of the comm asks, "is she fit for duty yet?"

For a moment, Clarke considers telling him that Shepard is dangerously insane, and should be confined (under his care, of course) for the rest of her natural life. But if she has escaped a childhood on the streets, fights with pirates, and a thresher maw attack, she will find a way to escape from his hospital. She has contempt for him now, but doesn't care enough to treat him like an enemy.

He won't piss her off.

"She's ready, Admiral," Clarke admits. "As long as you don't count the fact that she's a cold, unfeeling _bitch_," he can't resist adding.

"Just what the galaxy needs," Hackett chuckles, thinking the doctor is joking.

If only he knew.


	3. N7

**N7**

* * *

><p>Guns finally, <em>finally<em> make sense.

**.**

She's never met another soldier who came from Earth the same way she did. Sure, there were plenty of other Earthborns at Macapá, but from listening to conversations in the mess, she knows none of them had taught themselves to read. All of them seemed irrationally fond of the planet, and proud to be part of the Alliance. None of them had ever seen another kid killed for scrounging food out of the wrong dumpster, either.

Something about the way she grew up must have wired Shepard wrong. Even after all her training, she can't quite manage to do anything but pretend that she knows how to think like a soldier. Instead of firing guns or lobbing grenades, she always reaches for knives. Not because she likes getting blood all over herself, or because it's easier to remember that the carotid artery is a weak spot everyone has than to memorize where all the chinks are in medium-weight Colossus armor, but because knives have kept her alive. Knives mean that a small person can wedge herself into a hiding spot and let her enemies to come to her. If she knows where to cut, she can lie in wait at ankle height, and bullies will still die before they even have a chance to realize that they've found her.

The Alliance military doesn't fight like street kids in the megalopolises on Earth though. None of her tactics classes ever talked about hiding. The lessons were all about circling around, flanking, attrition, setting ambushes. All soldiers are supposed think about is rushing _towards_ gunfire and danger. Shepard can guarantee that she will never think like that.

Akuze didn't count.

**.**

Guns left a bad taste in her past. Part of Shepard knows that her reluctance to use the loud weapons can be traced back to the Reds, to Hyper, the gang's last leader who'd ever thought about turning the Reds into something more than a wolf pack bent on survival. Hyper had been obsessed with running guns. He'd been desperate for credits, and Shepard had had to kill him slowly to make sure that no one in the Reds would ever think about betraying their gang again.

Hyper's death had put Shepard at the top of the Reds, but it hadn't brought all of the littles back. Her one, disastrous attempt to lead the Reds had consisted of executing an elaborate breakout of the littles Hyper had sold to the Relocation Society. At the end of it all, they only rescued five littles, and an especially brutal cop had sliced Shepard's cheek all the way open and yanked her cap off of her head.

Just like that, her life with the Reds had been over. There were plenty of street kids with darkish skin, indeterminately colored eyes, and scars, but no one else had blond hair. Coppers, retaliating for the Reds' unthinkable boldness, had taken to the streets in force. What had once been simple harassment, a delicate balance between oafish seekers and nimble hiders, had turned into a ruthless extermination conducted by hunters bent on extermination. The Reds had booted Shepard, and she couldn't blame them. By attacking the Relocation Society, the gang had challenged the status quo. The adults didn't like it, and Shepard, with her bright, shiny hair was an easy target. Albeit a moving target.

She'd run on her own for a year or so. It was hard to be exactly sure. Sometimes, she'd swung by Tenth Street and checked on the Reds, partly to make sure that they weren't too jammed up, and partly to make sure that none of the new leaders were getting ideas about turning on the littles.

She never stayed in one place long, except for the couple months she'd spent hiding at the university, pretending to be a student. She'd had to trade herself to one of the black market dealers for a clean datapad, but with the tech, she had been able to set up a fake ID solid enough to slip through the university's shoddy digital security. The science classes had been interesting, but being small and scrawny, and only having occasional access to a shower meant that before long people began to suspect that she didn't really belong at the school.

The time on her own, with no gang to rely on, had forced Shepard to be tougher. By the time she'd been snagged by a copper who recognized her, there had been no question that she could slice him up to protect herself, regardless of how big he was. Still, she'd known after that that she would have to leave the city. The police could take anyone's blood that they wanted, but you couldn't take theirs. Not if you wanted to stay alive.

Which was how she'd ended up running away to join the Alliance. Since being smart was apparently a rare thing for a soldier, so Shepard had been given a chance to earn a commission. Of course she'd made the grade. Which was how she'd ended up on Akuze. Of course she'd survived the maw. Which was how she'd ended up in N7 training.

…

For something that the Alliance talks up so much, the early ranks of Interplanetary Combatives Training are probably the least interesting thing that's ever happened to her. Everything before N4 consists of seeing whether candidates are capable of surviving various combat scenarios. For all the challenge it presents, they might as well have refused to let her sign up on Earth all those years ago. The only difference between training and childhood is that in training, everyone uses guns loaded with kinetic slugs; you couldn't die if you tried.

Getting her N1 certification should be a joke. It _is_ a joke, with the requirements to keep moving all day, and 'only' being able to eat the food that you can carry. She can't keep from laughing at the other candidates at the end of their first week, when most of them bond by complaining about how they're hungry. Since all she's done so far is keep to herself and follow the orders of their designated team leader, no one is quite sure what to make of her laughter at first. After the shock wears off though, they decide that they're offended, and the expressions on their fat, soft faces would make her laugh even harder if they didn't need to keep quiet and hidden.

"Weak," she says to herself, loud enough for everyone to overhear. This does not calm anyone down.

"You're a bitch, aren't you, Shepard?" Karl Janz will probably wash out before he earns his N7. Shepard has been watching him, and she's realized that he is missing something. He's never had to struggle for anything, not really, and he doesn't like deprivation. At first, she couldn't guess how he ended up in ICT, but he has family connections in the military. One of his uncles is something high-ranking. A rear admiral, maybe. Scuttlebutt says he's earned a few commendations for his bravery in defending colonial outposts from batarian attacks. On top of that, wavy dark hair and bright blue eyes have made him good-looking. All in all, Shepard can't stand him.

The knowledge that her antagonist doesn't have what it takes can't help her now. Right now, Janz is a bully off of the stretch of block he knows best, and he's focused on Shepard as a target for venting his uncertainty.

When she was a little, Shepard had three ways to handle bullies.

Bribery. Give a bigger kid food, and even if he beats on you a little, he'll move on, because you might have more food for him later. She considers this option. Although the food they've been given is packaged into set serving sizes, she usually doesn't eat a whole meal equivalent; it's more than she needs. But if she shows weakness now, Janz will be back, just like any other bully, looking for a chance to wring more out of her.

Escape. Always be faster than the bully chasing you. That won't work here, clearly. She's supposed to be part of this team. Even if she wasn't, there are six other combat teams out there, and an enemy gang can kill you more easily than one bully can.

Kill him. The best way to get rid of a threat is to cut its throat, or beat it over the head with a rock until it stops moving.

The arbitrary lines drawn by the Alliance say that Janz is a part of her gang though, and Shepard knows better than any of these others that you don't turn on your own gang. Even if you hate everyone else in the gang, you never try to kill each other. You only fight to see who's stronger, who should be higher up. It will have to do.

The combat team has stopped for a couple hours of rest and sleep. Now is as good a time as any to fight him and prove she doesn't have to take his shit. She slides her pack off of her shoulders, sizing Janz up. Nearly everyone Shepard knows is bigger than her hundred sixty centimeters, fifty kilos. (She's tiny and fragile-looking, but at least she's made of nice round numbers). Janz looks to be almost two meters tall, and he's got to weigh at least ninety kilos. Still, Shepard knows that she can tolerate more pain than he can. She can beat him.

She's opening her mouth to challenge the bully when someone else speaks up.

"Maybe Shepard's a bitch, Janz, but at least she's not a _whiny_ bitch like you. Everyone's hungry, and hearing you complain about it only makes me cranky."

"Everyone knows biotics have weird appetites, but are you really that desperate for a lay, Pallikareas?" Janz sneers. "Hang on until we get back to civilization. You don't need to try and get into Shep—"

He doesn't get a chance to finish what he was going to say, because Pallikareas slugs him in the jaw.

"Enough!" Out of the six candidates on their combat team, Diana Upton is the only woman besides Shepard. She's also been appointed leader on their first mission, but so far Shepard hasn't been impressed by her abilities. She smiles too much to be a real soldier.

"You're all out of line!" Upton hisses, reminding them with just the volume of her voice that they're supposed to treat this evaluation like real combat. "Shepard, keep your damn mouth shut next time. We're all burning on short fuses. Janz, Pallikareas, the two of you need to grow up. Janz, you're an ass. Pallikareas, Shepard is a big girl. She can handle herself."

That's right. Shepard doesn't need the team's biotic to protect her. She tries to glare at Pallikareas, but he just smiles at her. What an idiot.

**.**

After glancing up to make sure there's nothing and no one dangerous hiding up there, she sets up under a tree for the night. Intellectually, she knows that having her back to a tree doesn't actually make her safer; enemies can come from any direction when you're out in the open like this. Still, the illusion helps her sleep. She sits on top of her sleeping roll, pulls a knife out of her belt, and closes her eyes.

Someone approaches her spot from behind. In an instant, she's on her feet, knife ready.

"Wow." Pallikareas raises his hands in a gesture of peace. What kind of fool sneaks up on a person when she's trying to sleep? "You don't trust anyone, do you?" He drops his pack and takes a seat on her right side.

She sits back down, shuts her eyes again. He's not a threat, just an annoyance; if she ignores him, he'll go away.

"Thanks for handling Janz for me," the biotic says in what he obviously thinks is a feminine tone of voice. "I really appreciate it. It was so exciting, when you took him out with just one punch!"

She really can't imagine what could be wrong with this man. Everything she's read about biotics says that the ability to manipulate dark energy doesn't directly affect higher brain functions, but Pallikareas is the first biotic she's spoken to since boot camp, and he's clearly not all there.

"No worries, Shepard," he says in his normal voice. "I've been looking for an excuse to deck that fucker since we got to the villa. Defending your honor was an unexpected bonus. Don't think for a minute that it was an unwelcome bonus, though."

Defending her honor? What does that even mean? She thinks about it, thinks about the things Janz had said before Pallikareas punched him. One of the things she has noticed is that 'normal' people don't talk about sex much. When they do, they're either very loud, like it's something to brag about, or very quiet, like it's something to be ashamed of. Just another thing people do that doesn't make sense. Sometimes she misses how straightforward everything was on Earth. On Earth, sex was currency, something you could offer when you didn't have anything else to trade.

She gets money from the Alliance now, but she still has sex on occasion. It's not something she needs, the way she needs to eat, but she likes it, the way she likes to shower. Since joining the military, Shepard has learned that she prefers men to women, but that sex is easier with women. Shepard never had to break a woman's nose to get her to keep her parts to herself, at any rate.

Anyway. Other people are peculiar about sex. Pallikareas must have thought he was doing something noble (nobility, another idea that doesn't make sense), by attacking Janz.

"Did you hit Janz because he was talking about the two of us having sex?" she asks, opening her eyes. It's pathetic, the pride she always gets when a theory she's formulated proves correct.

The biotic's skin is that funny dark shade that people call olive, and his face is covered in the short bristle of a beard after a week in the woods, but his blush is _very_ dark, and even reaches his ears. He must be one of the ones who talks about sex quietly.

When he responds, his voice is much less smooth. For some reason, that makes Shepard like him more. "I—uh. Maybe? That was probably part of it." He looks at Shepard. "Maybe I just don't like it when big guys pick on littler ones?"

She cocks her head to the side. "I never held with beating on littles," she agrees.

The red color fades from the biotic's face, and he smiles. "I knew there had to be more to you than silence and blond hair," he says, offering his hand.

A spark jolts through her when Shepard shakes his hand, like static. She pulls away and stares at him. "What was that?"

"You wouldn't believe animal magnetism, would you?" Pallikareas asks. "No?" His smile fades a little. "Biotics build up an electrical charge in our bodies if we haven't used our biotics in a while, so skin-to-skin contact gives non-biotics a static shock sometimes."

Shepard considers this information. She's never read anything that indicated that dark energy was similar to electricity. "Extra electrical charge?" she asks. "Could you use biotics to change the way you use your omni-tool then? Channel that extra energy into the omni-tool to augment the force you use when you're punching someone, for example?" She thinks back to the engineering texts she's read, trying to figure out how she could change the circuitry of an omni-tool to respond to biotically-generated electricity. "What kind of omni do you use?" she asks.

Pallikareas looks at her with confusion. "That's your question? Really? You're not freaked out by the quirky biotic?"

Why would she waste time on that? Genetic testing has proven that biotics are still humans. Humans with different abilities, but no more remarkable than her own ability to grow blond hair. Maybe a little flashier. She shakes her head at him.

"You're all right, aren't you, Shepard?" When he grins, the expression is crooked, but all Shepard notices is how soft it makes his large brown eyes. She brushes the realization away; it's a chemical reaction to all this thinking about sex.

…

For all the trouble she takes to blend in, to be inconspicuous and overlooked, there's something about Shepard that catches the eye. Ironically, it might be the fact that she tries so hard to hide that makes her noticeable. It's the way she freezes instead of just standing still, the way she instinctively stands in the darkest part of a room, the way her eyes take in everything, but her face never reveals what she's thinking.

That might be why making Shepard laugh has become his favorite game. He doesn't win the game often, but when he does, he gets the most genuine emotion he ever sees from her. Someday Pallikareas will figure out a way to predict when she will find something funny. Unfortunately, there's no knowing how her mind works. Maybe because she's the smartest person he has ever met, her mind seems to function within completely alien parameters.

Not that he'll ever say that to her; Shepard is also the most racist person he's ever met.

**.**

Between every level of ICT training, they get ten days of leave. After they completed N1, he'd dragged Shepard out of the Vila Militar, telling her that it was his first time on Earth, and he wasn't going to spend it going over old N2 training videos, and reading engineering journals.

"You don't have to," she'd said, with that quizzical tilt of her head that she always gave him.

"Maybe I'm not being clear. We're in _Rio de Janeiro._ It's sunny, and beautiful, and I'm not letting you stay cooped up in here until we're dropped into the hell of N2 next week."

"Do you think you can make me do anything I don't want to do?" The scary look in her eyes he'd recognized for the first time when Janz had gone after her had flickered to life.

He grinned. "You want to," he said. "I'll even buy you a beer."

"I don't drink."

"Why the hell not?"

She shrugged. "Drunks piss on littles."

"What?" he stared. "Look, you crazy _koritsi_, stop making excuses. We're going out."

Her face almost turned scary again, but at the last minute, she gave a half-smile. "What did you call me?"

"Tell you what," he picked her boots up off the floor and tossed them at her, "I'll tell you if you come out."

Despite numerous offers to pay, begging, and attempts at trickery, Shepard wouldn't drink. She tagged along with him to the beach, and let him teach her to swim. No matter what he tried, he couldn't get her to tour the city's big cathedral. (Her only explanation had been "_Nuns_"). When he took her to the national library, it had been so funny to see her excited over its size, and some of the rare texts they had, that he hadn't minded wasting an entire day inside the Academy of Letters.

**.**

He likes the way Shepard asks him things. For someone who knows so much, she has questions about the oddest things. Bathing suits, she asked about, the first time he took her to the beach. A few days before they got their N3 certification, she wanted to know everything about his implants. Even though he knows that she only asks questions about such odd things because her childhood was so messed up she didn't even know to make fun of the scrap of baby blanket she found in his duffel that one time, he likes her questions. When she asks him something, she focuses on Pallikareas so intently that sometimes he worries she'll stare the skin off of his face.

New information and food, she inhales both like she'll never have the chance again.

He likes the way Shepard has finally gotten to trust him. True, it took six months before she stopped jumping up with her knife every time he made the mistake of walking up behind her, but now, she trusts him enough that sometimes she falls asleep in front of him. Once, she actually drifted off with her head on his shoulder, and he ended up buying a half-dozen drinks he didn't want just so he could stay in the restaurant and not have to wake her up.

Awake, she's always making herself seem bigger than she actually is. Asleep, she curls into herself, looking tiny, fragile, and in need of protection.

He likes the way Shepard always explains things he has no interest in, in too much detail. It's a compliment, really, that she thinks he might be smart enough to understand some of the things she thinks about. She's surprisingly patient with him, too, considering that she's usually doesn't have patience with idiots. Although he'll never admit it, he's learned a lot just from listening to her odd little lectures. If his shuttle ever crash lands, he'll be able to forage for edible plants, and rig a signaling beacon out of parts salvaged from the wreckage and his omni-tool.

Talking isn't her favorite thing to do, so when she has something to say, he listens.

He likes the way Shepard has his back during training. These missions are getting more and more dangerous, real enough to shock him. He'd heard about how intense the Spec Ops program was, but he'd always thought the stories were exaggerated. During N5 training—three months of jetpacks, combat diving, and military free-fall—she'd watched him get more and more nervous about heights, and listened to him tell her how certain he was that he was going to fall to his death. She'd still partnered with him for the first parachuting exercise, a tandem jump. Of course, because he was with Shepard, everything had gone smoothly, and he'd felt like an idiot for being afraid. And because Shepard is always so weird, she'd been laughing the whole way down, and wanted to go again as soon as they landed.

Maybe she likes falling and training in zero-G environments because Earth always let her down so badly.

He tries to like the way Shepard tells him that he's the first real friend she's ever had (after he explained friendship to her a few times), but he can't.

…

There were thirty-six candidates in their class when they started N1 training together back at the villa. By the time they've reached the final certification tests for N7, they're down to twelve. Shepard is one of the remaining candidates, of course. So is Pallikareas, and Upton. So is Janz.

It's disappointing to be wrong when you make a prediction, but Shepard learned long ago that sometimes she makes mistakes.

They've been dropped onto a rock that doesn't deserve to be called a planet, told that batarians attacked a Alliance research outpost, and sent in to reclaim the territory. Everyone who survives this attack is getting their N7 when they're picked up.

For the first time, Shepard thinks that maybe she won't make the cut. Commander Jaff, the training officer who's been in charge of torturing them since they arrived at the villa, made her turn over all her knives before he let her get on to the shuttle with the others. Then, he'd checked Pallikareas for knives, because Jaff is smarter than Shepard likes to give him credit for being, and he knew that Pally would slip her a knife.

"Use your guns on this one, Shepard," Jaff ordered, handing her a sniper rifle.

She wanted to tell him that she'd never done more than basic training with a sniper rifle, and _that_ was on Macapá, but she's tired of hearing Jaff yell at her, so she takes the gun.

Right before they're sent off, Jaff appoints Janz de facto commander of the mission. Shepard hates the way things are always terrible.

…

"The four-eyed bastards are dug in deep," Shepard tells the rest of the group after they've been tramping across this miserable excuse for a terraformed world for a week. Janz always sends her up ahead as a scout, probably so he'll be able to say she's too tired to be part of the first wave when they actually start breaching the place. Still, Shepard's good at it, good at sneaking around quickly, good at staying out of sight and figuring out what's going to try and kill her next.

It's irritating that Janz knows what he's doing.

She outlines the way the batarians have placed guards, snipers, and traps. The squad hasn't seen any action since they landed. There's a sense of eagerness; everyone pays close attention to her words. Shepard wishes that she knew how to draw. A picture would give the others a better sense of what she saw. Abruptly, she realizes that she cares whether they all live or die. She's not just concerned with herself. It's strange, and she's not sure that she likes it.

The plan Janz outlines conflicts with the orders they were given, and suddenly, Shepard likes him a little better. He's not interested in the base, just the research data. The team that's going into the building is going to retrieve that data, and blow the place to hell. When Pally speaks up and tries to remind Janz that they can't just deviate from the mission plan like that, Janz snaps that he's not going to let any of the batarians get away with killing the Alliance personnel that worked here.

There's an emotion on Janz's face when he says that, and Shepard realizes that all his fights with batarians weren't the coincidence that his file paints it as. For some reason, the man goes picking fights with the alien scum. She can respect that. When she was a little, the stories on the news bursts were always about how the batarians were burning colonies to the ground and capturing humans to use as slaves. The more of them that die, the better.

She finds herself smiling a little at Janz when he glances at her, and his eyes widen in surprise. They look away from each other quickly. She turns back to face Pally and realizes he's scowling at her.

"What was that?" he whispers. "We hate him, remember?"

Shepard doesn't say anything. She doesn't see the point in talking now. Paying attention to the plan is more important, and Pally is being ridiculous. She never hated Janz. She just didn't think he was worth anything. She still doesn't think he's worth much. It's not too different.

As expected, Janz places her in a clump of bushes roughly seven hundred meters away from the enemy's main base. "Use that sniper rifle, cover our exit." Everyone knows that she's not really going to be able to do anything with the stupid gun, but she goes anyway.

Something changes, though, when she gets to that spot. It's not an abandoned building, or the crawlspace the overhang of a roof creates, but the way one of the bushes is growing, there's a hollow in the center. Normally, Shepard isn't one for nature—Pally is the one who likes trees and flowers—but this is the perfect hiding place. She crawls into it and instantly feels at home.

Sighting through the scope so she can relay real-time information about batarian defenses as the others make their way down the hill, Shepard realizes how easy it will be to pick off the batarian guards from a distance. The little in her relaxes in a way she never relaxed in real life. There's no more need to wait for the bullies to come to her. She can hide, be safe, and take them down from a distance.

So that's what she does.

Commander Jaff might be a genius. How none of her other COs ever thought to saddle Shepard with a sniper rifle and make her stick to it, is beyond her.

After a while, breathing along with each shot feels natural in a way she never would have expected. She doesn't remember how to see without the scope. The stupid sniper rifle isn't something strange and awkward anymore, it's a part of her. The gun understands how vital it is to stay hidden if you want to make yourself safe.

By the time the research base is glowing orange with the aftereffects of the squad's explosive, Shepard has lost count of the number of batarians she's taken down as they tried to flee. She feels warm inside.

…

On the shuttle back to the ship that's going to take the eleven of them who survived the op to the Villa, there's a lot of grinning and back-slapping. Pally kisses Shepard, she punches him, and they both laugh.

Even the candidates—no, not candidates, they're all N7s now—who she never got along with are smiling and shaking hands with her. They've been together for more than a year and a half; it doesn't cost so much to be friendly with each other right now.

Janz sits down next to her, and wraps an arm around her shoulders. "I saw all those kills you made. Nice job, Pavlichenko," he says.

She jerks out of his grasp; she doesn't like people touching her. "Pavlichenko?"

"First female sniper to rack up a real body count."

She glances down at the gun in her lap, runs her fingers along its disassembled barrel with an uncharacteristic fondness. "Guns finally make sense," she comments.

"They didn't before?" he asks. "You fooled me. I figured out during N1 that you were going to make it here. You just had that look in your eye. I knew you would do it."

"I never thought you would do it," she counters.

"You really are a bitch, aren't you, Shepard?"

"All this time, and you still don't have a better insult?"

"I know better than to insult a woman who can put a hole between my eyes at a thousand meters."

"So you think 'bitch' is an accurate assessment of my personality and abilities?"

"Well, you spend all your time with Pally." Janz's eyes run over Shepard's body with an expression she recognizes. "I never got a chance to assess you outside of training." He actually smiles at her. "When we get back to Earth, how about you give me a chance to form an independent opinion?"

Shepard doesn't smile at him, but she nods. "All right." She still doesn't like Janz much, but he really is handsome. She's an N7. Guns finally make sense. She deserves a treat.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Author's Note: <strong>So, for some reason, Janz is who I imagine KS Shepard would be if his mother had married someone her parents approved of, and he'd never been through Mindoir. I was as surprised as FemShep when he made it to N7. _


	4. Shakedown

**Shakedown**

She likes the idea of a stealth ship, but the _Normandy_ needs bigger guns. There's no point in being able to hide if you can't take out an enemy with one quick, surprise attack. Lighter plating could work too, if running was all right. Shepard's never liked running though. If you run, whoever's chasing you thinks you're afraid.

People say that confidence can make an enemy stupid. That's wrong. Confidence comes from knowing you're stronger. The only thing better than being stronger is being smarter. That's why Shepard is still alive. If you're smart, you don't run, you fight and you trick and you kill and you win and you stay alive.

Honestly, running is only all right if you're part of a gang. Then, you send out your quickest little to get your enemy's attention. Have him do something stupid. Look for food in a dumpster on their turf. Have a lookout warn him when they're coming, a signal the other gang won't understand. Have him run. Be waiting with more guys than the others have, and rocks, sticks, glass, sharp metal—whatever you can kill with. Expand your territory. Make everyone else afraid to fuck with you.

The turians helped build this ship. She isn't sure how she feels about that. She isn't sure how she feels about the turian Spectre that stalks around the hallways like he owns the ship. What she _is_ sure of is that she doesn't like the way he's always watching her. Slavery's illegal on Earth, in Council space, but that doesn't mean there aren't slaves on Council-controlled planets. Doesn't mean there aren't slavers that hide down alleyways the cops don't care about. Doesn't mean you don't have to learn to _feel _when someone's watching you with too much interest. Unless you want to get sold to a pedophile or a mining company or something worse that Shepard doesn't know about but knows exists.

His eyes are very green. An alien shade of the color. It makes Shepard want a hat, even though she hasn't needed to cover her hair up to hide since she left Earth.

**…**

Captain Anderson is friendly, in a professional sort of way. Shepard thinks he is disappointed in her, but she doesn't understand why or how he could be. She does her job perfectly. She eats meals with Anderson and the turian, and stays quiet unless one of them asks her a question or she has a report to make. She stays out of his way so that he can do his job, and she makes sure his orders are carried out.

She is a good XO. She is precise, clever, quiet, and capable. She fights good. She fights _well_. Guns, knives, stealth, ambushes, distance, close-up—Shepard knows how to kill. She knows how to fix a ship. She knows lots of things. She knows she is not good for command; she has known she is not good for command ever since the Reds, but she is good if she has someone with charisma and flair to parrot out her orders. She has read about Machiavelli and Sun Tzu and Bismarck and a dozen others who knew that the best place to be is in the shadows, where it is safe and quiet, and thinking can happen. The limelight is for loud fools that turn to the dark for help and ideas, but pretend that the thinking was their own.

She is a good XO, and so she does not understand why Captain Anderson seems to think that there is something wrong with her.

**.**

Everyone knows about the famous Captain Anderson. How many times has he been a hero? How many medals have been pinned on him over the years? Shepard doesn't actually know, which irritates her; she likes to be precise. Still, the number of medals isn't an important detail. An important detail is that Captain Anderson has never been involved in a scandal. There's no deviant behavior he has to hide. He never killed just to do it. An important detail is that Captain Anderson's managed to avoid getting scars on his face. He is the sort of soldier the Alliance likes to point to and say, 'Look, _this_ is who you will be if you join us.'

Shepard knows that that is a lie.

If you join, it's more likely that you will be like her old squad. You will be dead on Akuze, eaten by a monster no human had ever heard of before. The aliens didn't think to mention thresher maws.

She still hates aliens. Nothing has happened to her to make her think they are not assholes. That they would not kill all the humans, kidnap and eat all the littles if they thought they could get away with it.

If you join, it's more likely that you will be like Corporal Richard Jenkins. You will be stupid and loud, and you will think that fighting is about excitement and glory. You will be dangerous to the people on your side of a fight, because you won't understand that fighting is about _killing_ someone else, making them dead before they make you dead.

Glory is another thing she doesn't understand. The only kind of reputation that matters is the kind that scares people away. That makes them afraid you will kill them, at a time they can't predict, in a way that will hurt more than they can imagine. That makes them believe you can't be killed, no matter what they do to you.

If you join, it's more likely that you will be like Captain Karin Chakwas, the _Normandy's_ medical officer. You will talk about friends you never see from time to time. You will be smart and get promoted and be friendly and lonely. You will be busy. You will tell yourself that the way you feel is all right, that your work is important. You will watch everyone around you die.

The doctor reminds Shepard of herself, a little. Except instead of killing, the doctor fixes. People smile at her and like her. Shepard wonders if this is what she should be like, but decides she doesn't care. The doctor calls Shepard, 'my dear,' and is kind to her. It doesn't mean anything; she's kind to everyone. It's not trustworthy. No one likes everyone. The doctor must have secrets. Everyone has secrets. Secrets make people dangerous. Shepard resolves to keep away from the medbay.

**…**

The _Normandy_ is going to Eden Prime. The official name for what they are doing is a shakedown run, but there are too many people aboard. Shepard wonders if the brass is stupid or if they just think all their soldiers are stupid. Anyone who pays attention will know that this mission is a _mission_, not just a test flight for the shiny new frigate.

The number of crewmembers that ask Shepard what is _really_ going on is depressingly small. She never feels lonely until she is around other people, and she realizes how few of them can _think_.

She is smart, and she would not want to be stupid, but it makes her alone.

**.**

Corporal Richard Jenkins is from Eden Prime. He tells Shepard that he joined the Alliance because he wanted to get away from peace and safety and quiet. Away from parents who loved him and fed him and weren't whores, or addicted to drugs, or just evil, the way Shepard's parents probably were. Although who knows? If her mother really _was_ a whore, her father could have been anyone. He could have been someone with a job and plenty of food, just looking for a thrill, because he had money for meds if he caught something from a streetwalker.

If she had grown up like that, with peace and safety and food and family, Shepard thinks she would have stayed in that place. Unless it is food and warmth that makes you stupid. She knows it isn't. She knows she would have been smart, would have been mostly the same as the way she is no matter how she was raised. If she admits that though, she feels angry. Anger is useless because it make you stupid, and Shepard knows that she can't change anything about the way she lived when she was a little.

Corporal Richard Jenkins does not seem at all distressed when they learn Eden Prime is under attack. Shepard did not recognize the outline of the ship that they caught on the distress call that some ground-pounders managed to transmit off the planet. It was big. Very big. Everything on Eden Prime looked like it was burning.

If the place she had grown up in was burning, Shepard would not mind. But she grew up in hell. Parts of it were always on fire. All of it was disgusting. The clean, safe parts most of all. The parts that pretended that Shepard and people like her didn't exist. That they were far away, imaginary, not real, someone else's problem. Shepard hates everything about Earth. She never wants to go back there. She doesn't care if it burns.

Corporal Richard Jenkins called Eden Prime a paradise though. It looks like it could have been one. Safe and clean and small enough not to have slums. Only humans. The kind of place Shepard would want to retire to if she thought she could figure out how people live normal lives, lives outside gangs and gutters and the Alliance.

If she had wanted to work with the turian Spectre, Shepard would be upset that he seems so eager to get away from her. She doesn't waste time on being offended by the fact that he thinks he could move faster without her and her team. Aliens are like that, careless and self-centered, and stuffed with smug superiority. Afraid of everything humanity has contributed in such a short time. How would the Spectre feel if he didn't have medi-gel, she wonders? Humans made that. Most of the drive core tech came from human engineers: turians mostly contributed to aesthetic elements of design. Not that the Council would ever admit that. As it is, she says nothing when the turian Spectre takes off on his own. If she becomes a Spectre, will she be free like that? If her candidacy depends on the turian's evaluation of her on this mission, how will he evaluate her if he doesn't watch her work?

Corporal Richard Jenkins thinks that Spectres are exciting heroes. He would like to be one, she can tell, even if he doesn't say it. Even if what he says instead is that Shepard would make a good Spectre. She is hard to kill, like a Spectre, he says. Like a cockroach, she corrects him. It shuts him up. It makes Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko laugh. Shepard stares at the lieutenant. Where was the joke? Cockroaches live in the worst places on Earth. They are small and fast and hard to kill. Shepard is like a cockroach. She shares more than sixty percent of her genetic code with a cockroach. Aliens are not even built from the same proteins.

If she didn't know that the tech in the Prothean beacon was more valuable than anything else on Eden Prime, Shepard would try to go back to the ship. Something is _wrong_ on this planet. She can feel it, the way she felt the maw, the way she always feels danger. Animals do that, she read once, somewhere. Animals sense the _wrong_ before it comes. Shepard doesn't like animals much—especially not dogs—but they rely on their instincts in a way that makes them better at surviving than humans are. It's good to be like an animal sometimes.

Corporal Richard Jenkins dies screaming. Strange drones shoot him full of holes. They take down his shields too quickly to be based on any kind of Council-approved tech specs. This is why humanity should stand on its own. The aliens will hold them back and leave them defenseless when bullies learn new ways to kill. And bullies always learn new ways. Bullies don't let the fake rules people create stand in their way. Anyone who lets the rules make them stupid deserves to die. The Alliance should wake up, before they all wake up dead. Like Corporal Richard Jenkins.

**…**

Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko checks Corporal Richard Jenkins' vitals and shakes his head. He closes the other man's eyes. He breaks off a dog tag from the chain around Corporal Richard Jenkins' neck and tucks it in an external pocket of his armor.

"He was just a _kid_," the lieutenant says. He sounds sad. Did he know Corporal Richard Jenkins well? Shepard didn't. It is too bad that he's dead; the team is weaker now. What's the point in sadness? Age doesn't matter. Soldiers die. Idiots die. Corporal Richard Jenkins was both. Better him than Shepard. Better him than Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko. They are both higher ranked. Smarter. More skilled. More valuable.

"Stay focused," Shepard says. She is busy, prying one of the drones that attacked them apart. There is information she needs here.

"What were these things?" Maybe the lieutenant isn't as smart as Shepard has been giving him credit for being. Maybe he is only smart enough to know it is better to keep his mouth shut most of the time. He is asking stupid, pointless questions. How would Shepard know what these drones are? Can't he see she's trying to figure that out? Doesn't he know that when _she _knows, she will tell him?

She stares at the circuitry inside the drone. She needs a closer look. "Stay alert," she orders. She takes off her helmet and glares at Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko when he fails to shoulder his gun and watch for more hostiles. He stares back at her, then blushes suddenly and remembers to be a soldier.

Shepard studies the wiring and the circuit boards as closely as she can. They are beautiful. Elegant in a way that is smoother even than quarian design. Clearly, quarian-based tech, but taken to a new level.

"Geth." She is certain of it. It is unlikely, but it is the only rational possibility. "There are geth here." Maybe guided by the quarians, but that's doubtful.

"Geth?"

Isn't that what she just said? Shepard sighs and slips her helmet back on. She stands and unclips her gun again. At least geth are different.


End file.
